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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;">https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html</a><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; color:#1F497D"></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p style="background: whitesmoke; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:18.0pt; font-family:"inherit",serif; color:#31547E">Women’s Holocaust Concentration Camp, Ravensbrück</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">During the Holocaust, Jewish women were sent to seven different concentration camps across Europe. One of the camps, Ravensbrück in Germany, was unique in that it only detained female prisoners.
Besides providing a short historical overview of the camp, here some points related to the lives of the Jewish members of the camp’s population—focusing on the social connections they forged among themselves, and the cultural-artistic activities they engaged
in to occupy their time.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:"inherit",serif; color:#31547E">Historical Overview of the Camp </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Ravensbrück was established next to the eponymous village in north-eastern Germany, 90 kilometers north of Berlin. It lies on the banks of the Havel, near the picturesque Schwedtsee lake.
The camp was opened in 1939 and was designated for the internment female political prisoners. The first contingent of inmates was transported from Lichtenburg camp with SS-Hauptsturmführer Max Kegal, who served as camp commander until 1942. After Kegal, SS-Hauptsturmführer
Fritz Suhren served as camp commander until its liberation in 1945.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">The camp was initially small: at the end of 1939 it had only 2,000 inmates and by the end of 1942, 11,000. As the war drew to a close the camp turned into a central transit station for prisoners
from a variety of different populations. In 1944, more than 70,000 women would pass through the camp, most of them staying there for a relatively short amount of time. They were usually sent forward to one of Ravensbrück’s 34 sub-camps, some of which were
quite far away. In 1944, the relatively permanent inmates of Ravensbrück numbered 26,700.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Medical experiments were conducted in the camp, mostly on Polish political prisoners and gypsies. At the end of March 1945, the camp began to be evacuated. Some 25,000 inmates (and inmates
from nearby camps) were marched in the direction of Mecklenburg while thousands of German prisoners were released on the spot. When the Red Army reached the camp, on April 29–30, a mere week before Germany’s unconditional surrender, the camp was populated
by some 3,500 sick inmates who had been left behind.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/5318_290.jpg" title="Prisoners in Ravensbrück digging" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#31547E; text-decoration:none"><img 0?="" width="900" height="675" id="_x0000_i1029" alt="Prisoners in Ravensbrück digging" style="width: 9.375in; height: 7.0312in; user-select: none;" src="service.svc/s/GetFileAttachment?id=AAMkADA2ODU2ZDBkLWYzNWItNGFhOC04ZmVmLWE0OTJiMmYzZWM5OABGAAAAAABGBw2b0skdSLjxkXc4kboFBwBNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAAAAAEPAABNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAOGOH0OAAABEgAQACc%2B3pdq7Y1OqmnZoedeF8Y%3D&X-OWA-CANARY=s30iiVpUI0WRf9XNc4VpAMBcb0gTpdcI8JQg13xhRDyj-SW0rNEbuBmvOcKCCWAxT2Gtg4mV01U."></span></a><span style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#31547E; text-decoration:none"></span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Prisoners in Ravensbrück digging</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:"inherit",serif; color:#31547E">Groups of inmates in the camp</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">As mentioned, Ravensbrück did not just detain Jewish women. In fact, Jews always comprised a minority of the camp’s total population. Over the years, women from forty different countries
would pass through the camp. They were sorted into separate groups based on the grounds for their arrest, and members of different groups could be distinguished by the colored cloth triangle they wore. The largest group in the camp was comprised of political
prisoners who wore a red triangle. These women belonged to a variety of ethnic, religious and social affiliations. They had all been charged with illegal political activity such as membership in a communist or other illegal political party, providing intelligence
or aid to regime’s enemies, or engaging in illegal resistance activities. Among these political prisoners, Germans, Poles and Frenchwomen were prominent. Towards the end of the war, women from the USSR were also detained there (these were POW’s from the Red
Army who after a certain point were classified as political prisoners and sent to Ravensbrück).<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote2_9kywfor" title="סיידל (תשס"ח), עמ' 21-26." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">2</span></a></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">The second group of inmates were German religious prisoners—primarily Jehova’s Witnesses and members of other Christian denominations. These inmates had, in keeping with their faith, refused
to cooperate with the Nazi regime (for example, refusing to heil Hitler). Although they could have easily denied their beliefs and been released without a scratch, most of them refused to do so.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote3_7h52g4q" title="שם, עמ' 28; " Jehovah's Witnesses", United States Holocaust Memorial Museum." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">3</span></a>These
prisoners wore a purple triangle. The third group, marked by their black triangle, were those who ascribed to what the Nazi regime defined as “asocial” views. This group was also diverse and included women whose sexual behavior did not conform with the values
of the regime, such as, prostitutes. Lesbians, who were also defined as “asocial,” should also be mentioned in this context (as opposed to male homosexuals who had their own category and usually wore a pink triangle in the various concentration camps). Gypsies,
due to the prevailing view about their social lives and nomadism, were classified as part of this group as well. In addition to the aforementioned, there was a group of criminal prisoners—who wore a green triangle, and, of course, Jewish prisoners who wore
a yellow triangle.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote4_z75oa32" title="סיידל (תשס"ח), עמ' 30-32." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">4</span></a></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">The concentration camp in Ravensbrück was designated for the internment of political prisoners and other elements hostile to the Nazi regime. Why, then, were Jewish women detained there
as well? Were they also political prisoners? To answer this question, it is important to distinguish between two different periods of the camp’s activities. At first, Jewish inmates were—at least formally—accused of political transgressions, race crimes (sexual
relations with an Aryan), asocial behavior, or illegal border crossing. They were also charged with different sentences such as administrative detention, temporary detention, deportation or “re-education.” It seems, however, that these definitions were not
precise and were relatively arbitrary. Many of the Jewish prisoners detained for political reasons, had not engaged in any real illegal activity. Likewise, it was common for a Jewish inmate to be classified as a race traitor with little documentation or proof.
Finally, it should be added, that many were detained without any specific charges.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">In August 1942, the Germans began to evacuate Jewish inmates from Ravensbrück, rendering the camp Judenrein, and sending them to Auschwitz. Even during the next period of the camp’s management,
lasting until February 1943, when about five hundred new Jewish prisoners arrived at the camp, most Jews continued to be classified as political prisoners. It is, however, highly doubtful, that this generic charge had any grounds.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote6_bbpmx1x" title="שם, עמ' 62." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">6</span></a></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">As mentioned, after the Jewish prisoners were sent to Auschwitz in the summer of 1942, the stream of Jewish prisoners arriving at the camp was heavily reduced. However, beginning in August
1944—a period characterized by dramatic steps taken by the Nazi regime in light of the war’s imminent end and their impending loss—much larger groups of Jews were sent to the camp. Some of these were survivors of the ghettoes of Poland, others former inmates
of Auschwitz, and some sent straight from Budapest without stopping at any other camp. At this point it was clear, that these prisoners were being detained for their Jewishness and nothing else, and they were sent to the camp as laborers. These inmates, were
thus no different than any other Jews in German occupied Europe. From August 1944, until the camp’s liberation, more than 14,000 Jewish women were sent to the camp, in stark contrast to the mere 2,000 who had been interned there previously.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Throughout the camp’s history, even at the very beginning of its operation, the SS treated Jewish inmates as a separate group. Besides their distinct yellow triangle (which when combined
with another triangle, the red for example, created a Star of David), they were almost always consigned to separate barracks from the other inmates. Likewise, they worked in separate groups, and were forbidden from having any real contact with non-Jewish inmates.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:"inherit",serif; color:#31547E">Relationships and Social Organization </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">An interesting characteristic of the lives of the Ravensbrück inmates is what Judith Buber-Agassi has referred to as “camp families”—small social groups comprised of a few inmates who joined
together as an imaginary “family.”</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">In her study on the Jewish inmates of Ravensbrück, Buber-Agassi dedicates a chapter to the social ties established among inmates, discussing the nature of these relationships and how they
were forged. Here also it is important to differentiate between different periods within the camp’s history, which changed according to the character of the Jewish population and its relative size to other groups. In one period when the Jewish inmates numbered
600 and all lived in the same block, a certain level of shared cultural-educational activity was established.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote7_h5xmdue" title="ראה בהמשך בתיאור קורותיה של אולגה בנריו." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">7</span></a> This
was, however, generally not the case and it is usually difficult to find substantial testimony of comprehensive social organization among the camp’s Jewish inmates. Accounts instead point to a relatively large number of very small social groups and organizations.
While several reasons may lie behind this phenomenon it can be generally be attributed to the near impossibility of establishing any kind of comprehensive social organization in such a heavily disciplined camp. Nevertheless, and perhaps surprisingly, other
groups of prisoners did succeed in creating relatively efficient and comprehensive forms of social organization. This was the case for German-communist inmates, Polish political prisoners (who created an efficient and impressive social apparatus) or the members
of the Catholic resistance group. The phenomenon was, however, rare among the Jews.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote8_fpoosdp" title="שם, עמ' 206-208." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">8</span></a></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">In many senses, the Jewish inmates of Ravensbrück—like Jews in many other camps—had relatively little in common: they did not share a common homeland or language, they lacked a strong, well-developed
ideology to turn them into a united group, and unlike German communists, for example, they had not been detained for any clear ideological reason. As mentioned, even if many of the first Jewish inmates were formally charged with a specific crime, the reason
for their internment was generally far simpler—they were Jews. And while many of the Jewish inmates hailed from religious families or at least from families in which religion played an important role, this proved insufficient for unifying the Jewish prisoners
hailing from different backgrounds.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote9_dbtjlpb" title="שם, 208-210; הנ"ל, 'משפחות המחנה של האסירות היהודיות במחנה הריכוז רוונסבריק', אסתר הרצוג (עורכת), נשים ומשפחה בשואה, נתניה 2006, עמ' 95-112." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span dir="RTL"></span><span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:9.5pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; text-decoration:none"><span dir="RTL"></span>9</span></a></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#31547E; text-decoration:none"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Inmat</span><span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans""></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/5318_289.JPG" title="Inmates of Ravensbrück returning to camp from work" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#31547E; text-decoration:none"><img 0?="" width="900" height="574" id="_x0000_i1028" alt="Inmates of Ravensbrück returning to camp from work" style="width: 9.375in; height: 5.9791in; user-select: none;" src="service.svc/s/GetFileAttachment?id=AAMkADA2ODU2ZDBkLWYzNWItNGFhOC04ZmVmLWE0OTJiMmYzZWM5OABGAAAAAABGBw2b0skdSLjxkXc4kboFBwBNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAAAAAEPAABNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAOGOH0OAAABEgAQAKJ%2B9DdbB3NCnp0jB6SybVY%3D&X-OWA-CANARY=s30iiVpUI0WRf9XNc4VpAMBcb0gTpdcI8JQg13xhRDyj-SW0rNEbuBmvOcKCCWAxT2Gtg4mV01U."></span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333"></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Inmate Women of Ravensbrück returning to camp from work</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">It appears, however, that the role of very limited social circles —consisting of only a handful of prisoners who considered themselves a family—was of paramount importance. Quite often these
were relatives, sisters or cousins. But sometimes this was a “surrogate family” such as groups formed by inmates who had lived in the same city or ghetto, or in some cases a relationship between two good friends. An interesting phenomenon is the practice
of older women “adopting” teenagers who had been separated from their families or lost their mothers. For example, Erika Kounio Amariglio’s mother—who hailed from Salonika and took part in a death march to Ravensbrück with her daughter—adopted another three
Greek girls. These five women created a “camp family,” which remained united throughout the death march to Ravensbrück, in the camp itself, afterwards in the sub-camp Malchow and during the march from Malchow until liberation.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote10_m5bblit" title="בובר אגסי (תשס"ח), עמ' 214-217." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">10</span></a></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<i><span style="font-size:13.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif; color:#333333">[L]onely women were a rarity in the camp, because being alone meant near certain death. Everyone without a close relative, or a good friend, had to have a Lagerschwester (camp sister),
or the younger girls whose mothers had been gassed, were adopted by mature women.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote11_ro6k8si" title="עדותה של לידה ואגו (רוזנפלד), הובאה אצל בובר אגסי, עמ' 215." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt; text-decoration:none">11</span></a></span></i></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Seren Tuvel Bernstein’s account demonstrates how important it was to preserve these social circles:</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<i><span style="font-size:13.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif; color:#333333">A great cry went out, a moan that welled up from the bottom of despair. Each pair would be cut in two, leaving every woman far less than half of what she had been in a pair. Having
a sister, a cousin, or a friend in the camp with you was sometimes the only thing that gave you the courage to go on; each lived solely for the other.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote12_f7x5kxl" title="שם. אך השוו לדבריה של של רוזי מאוזקופף, שנותרה ברוונסבריק לבדה ללא משפחה או חברות: "שרר תוהו ובוהו בבלוק. הן רבו על פרוסת לחם, בגיהינום הזה הן לא יכלו להישאר אנושיות. לא חוויתי כל חברות או סולידריות" (דבריה הובאו שם)." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt; text-decoration:none">12</span></a></span></i></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">According to Buber-Agassi, each “camp family” naturally had one member who stood out as a leader of sorts, someone with authority and responsibility. As Bernstein described it:</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<i><span style="font-size:13.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif; color:#333333">I felt completely responsible for these three young girls; to me we were all sisters. I had to do everything in my power to enable us to remain alive. Survival became a matter of
establishing rules and adhering to them religiously. I was the oldest; I made the rules.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote13_4afm7um" title="שם, עמ' 2127." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt; text-decoration:none">13</span></a></span></i></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:"inherit",serif; color:#31547E">Cultural and Artistic Activities</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Resistance and disobedience were not real possibilities in Ravensbrück—at least not for the Jewish inmates. But despite the almost unbearable conditions, the inmates did their best to maintain
a normal life-style filled with a certain amount of cultural activity. An interesting phenomenon was women who would try to recall recipes, discussing them with others and committing them to writing—obviously without being able to every cook any of them. This
imaginary space allowed them to remember their former homes and world; it was a safe space impervious to German intrusion. At least five of these cookbooks were written by Jewish inmates in Ravensbrück.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote14_tqq6my7" title="סיידל (תשס"ח), עמ' 45." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">14</span></a></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Františka Quastler (later Nurit Stern) from Bratislava, Slovakia, arrived in Ravensbrück at the end of 1944, when she was 13. She wrote this recipe in a diary, made out of pieces of paper
stolen from the factory and then sewed together with wire. The booklet contains dedications written by camp inmates and recipes that she wrote herself. Nurit relates that the women would “cook” with their imaginations.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote15_0mdjhra" title="שם, עמ' 46; אודות ספר הזכרונות של קווסטלר ראה בתערוכה המקוונת באתר יד ושם: https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/he/exhibitions/albums/quastler.asp ." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">15</span></a></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<i><span style="font-size:13.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif; color:#333333">Exhausted, cold and hungry they [the women of the barrack] would talk endlessly about the food they longed for, about family meals they had shared and the dishes they planned to make
if they survived the war [...] Each woman in turn would share recipes in a paradoxical effort to stave off hunger. It seems as though these oft-repeated recipes and stories about family meals served as a talisman sustaining their humanity and hope in a time
with little hope. Rebecca hid away small pieces of paper and an indigo pencil and set about recording these recipes [...] In her clear, measured and even script, Rebecca filled 110 pages. The pages are meticulously hand stitched as a little volume that can
rest comfortably in the palm of one’s hand [...] The recipes themselves are quite extraordinary and elaborate [...] Upon the book’s completion each of the women would take turns reading from its pages: mousse au chocolat, gelee de groseilles, gauteau-neige,
plat hongrois, oeuf hollandais, sabayon italien,souffle a la confiture.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote16_d9c70je" title="שם, עמ' 44-45. התיאור המצוטט מקורו במאמר "Rebecca's Legacy: A Ravensbruck Cookbook", Zachor: Newsletter of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, 1, 4 (1988) ." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt; text-decoration:none">16</span></a></span></i></p>
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<i><span style="font-size:13.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif; color:#333333"> </span></i></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Another famous example is Yehudit Aufrichtig. Born in 1914 in Hungary, she immigrated to Amsterdam in 1938. After the Nazi conquest of the Netherlands, she began to take part in covert activities
and giving food to Jewish families hiding in the countryside. After being caught in 1944 she was sent to Ravensbrück. She and her friends also found temporary entertainment and comfort in the writing of “fantasy recipes.” This is what one of her fellow inmates
wrote her one day when she was too ill to receive her daily food distribution:</span></p>
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<i><span style="font-size:13.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif; color:#333333">To allow you to get at least some mental pleasure from our meals, I’ll give you the details of the menu. Breakfast: Karlsbad-style breakfast—eggs, butter, cheese, jam. Brunch: At
10:00 we had yogurt, langus [a deep-fried yeast pastry], and a radish. Lunch: potato soup with sour cream and laurel leaves, asparagus in sour cream and bread crumbs. Sunny-side-up egg and beef in tomato sauce with macaroni. Fried apple in vanilla sauce. Afternoon:
chocolate milk with whipped cream and egg bread with almonds and a “hornet’s nest” [a type of cake]. Supper: marrow, fried potatoes with onion, salad with green onion, little cookies and black coffee, fruit. We gorged ourselves with Klari. We ate everything
apart from a little slice of bread, which we saved for you<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote17_bwnq8do" title="ראה בתערוכה המקוונת "כתמים של אור: להיות אישה בשואה": https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/he/exhibitions/spots_of_light/yehudit_aufrichtig.asp. " style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt; text-decoration:none">17</span></a></span></i></p>
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<i><span style="font-size:13.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif; color:#333333"> </span></i></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Another exciting chapter in the history of the Jewish women of Ravensbrück is the story of two relatively well-known socialist activists who were interned in the camp and made a significant
contribution to the social leisure of the Jewish prisoners during the camp’s first period of activity. These two women were Olga Benario–Prestes and Käthe Pick Leichter.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Benario’s life story was far from normal. Born in Munich to a Jewish upper-middle class family, she became a enthusiastic communist activist in her youth. At age 18, she was arrested for
a short time and afterwards fled to Moscow where she was elected to the congress of the Communist Youth International and later to the leadership of the Comintern. In 1934, she accompanied Brazilian communist leader, Luís Carlos Prestes, on his trip to Brazil,
developing a romantic relationship with him. Prestes sought to take control of the Brazilian government in a coup, and as an act of retribution the Brazilian government seized Olga—who was pregnant at the time—and handed her over to Nazi Germany. Olga was
sent to various jails and concentration camps, sometimes being subjected to interrogation and torture. She managed to conceal the whereabouts of her daughter Anita, who was born in 1937 (Anita’s family managed to smuggle her back to her father in Brazil).
Olga was in the first contingent of prisoners that arrived in Ravensbrück from Lichtenbrug, and was appointed Blockalteste (block leader).<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote18_8iwcblu" title="סיידל (תשס"ח), עמ' 34-35." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">18</span></a> Besides
wearing the red triangle of political prisoners (and according to some accounts, she also “earned” a black triangle for asocial prisoners) Olga was obviously identified as a Jew as well and for a significant period of time, between 1940 and 1941, the 600 Jewish
inmates of Ravensbrück all resided in her block.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote19_y14x9me" title="בובר אגסי (תשע"ב), עמ' 210." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">19</span></a> Olga
Benario gave exercise lessons every morning, attended by all the prisoners, while also secretly organizing lessons in Russian and French as well as book readings in the evening. For example, one prisoner recalls that a prisoner found in a pile of rubbish a
moldy copy of Tolstoy’s <i>War and Peace</i>. Olga began to read it together with a small group of inmates.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote20_mno5ems" title="Ruth Werner, Olga Benario: A Historia de uma Mulher Corojosa, Sao Paulo 1987, p. 261. " style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">20</span></a> One
of Olga’s most impressive achievements was the creation of a detailed and precise atlas to help teach her fellow inmates geography, helping them understand the different arenas of the ongoing war. The atlas can be found today in the camp archive.</span></p>
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<i><span style="font-size:13.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif; color:#333333"> </span></i></p>
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<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/2777_26.jpg" title="Inmates in Ravensbrück making straw shoes" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#31547E; text-decoration:none"><img 0?="" width="900" height="630" id="Picture_x0020_4" alt="Inmates in Ravensbrück making straw shoes" style="width: 9.375in; height: 6.5625in; user-select: none;" src="service.svc/s/GetFileAttachment?id=AAMkADA2ODU2ZDBkLWYzNWItNGFhOC04ZmVmLWE0OTJiMmYzZWM5OABGAAAAAABGBw2b0skdSLjxkXc4kboFBwBNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAAAAAEPAABNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAOGOH0OAAABEgAQAEFIf5ihypVEqHXDV38XIOg%3D&X-OWA-CANARY=s30iiVpUI0WRf9XNc4VpAMBcb0gTpdcI8JQg13xhRDyj-SW0rNEbuBmvOcKCCWAxT2Gtg4mV01U."></span></a><span style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#31547E; text-decoration:none"></span></span></p>
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<span style="font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Inmates in Ravensbrück making straw shoes</span><span style="color:#333333"></span></p>
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<span style="color:#333333"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Käthe Leichter was older than Olga Benario. She was born in Vienna in 1895 to the wealthy, well-known, Jewish family Pick. Like Olga Benario, she too was drawn into socialist activism. She
was the student of esteemed sociologist Max Weber, finished her doctoral studies in the social sciences in the University of Heidelberg with honors, and later filled a number of key roles in the leadership of socialist parties in Austria. Immediately after
the <i>Anschluss</i> her husband, Otto Leichter, who was also an important activist, fled to Czechoslovakia. Käthe made every preparation to join him but on the day of her planned escape, she was arrested. In 1939, she was charged with illegal political activity
and in 1940 sent to Ravensbrück.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote22_atux5qp" title="שם, עמ' 36-38." style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">22</span></a></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">Käthe was a prolific writer, and shared her plays and poems with her fellow inmates. A group of prisoners even produced and performed one of Käthe’s plays entitled “Schumm-Schumm.” The play
delivered an unequivocally anti-Nazi message; “it contained many songs mocking the SS and biting social criticism” as attested to by Rosa Jochmann. Jochmann also recounted that Käthe destroyed the original play and replaced it with a different version in which
it is the Jews who are derided, and the SS officers praised. It was this version which the SS officers found among Käthe’s posessions, thus saving the actors and spectators from immediate execution, allowing them to get off with “only” a few weeks in the punishment
block.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote23_9f2rwcz" title="23" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">23</span></a> In the long term, however,
all those who participated in the play were sent on the next transport to the gas chambers. This was also the tragic end which met both Olga and Käthe—both were sent in 1942 to the gas chambers of the Bernberg Euthanasia Center. They were murdered with the
majority of Jewish prisoners of Ravensbrück at that time.<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/women-in-ravensbrueck.html#footnote24_dymow59" title="24" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:9.5pt; text-decoration:none">24</span></a></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<b><span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:"inherit",serif; color:#31547E">Summary</span></b><span style="font-size:13.5pt; font-family:"inherit",serif; color:#31547E"></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Open Sans"; color:#333333">We have reviewed here certain aspects of the lives of the Jewish prisoners in Ravensbrück. To what extent are the characteristics discussed here unique to female prisoners? Was the significant
tendency of the female prisoners to band together in small groups related to their gender? Was imaginary escapism and spiritual healing and refuge in the form of discussing recipes from their mothers’ homes a unique phenomenon? Or was it no different, in principle,
from a group of male prisoners trying to remember, between roll call and labor, stories from their former towns and universities? We will not provide any definitive answers to these or any other questions here. They will instead be left open to the reader’s
consideration.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; color:#1F497D">___________________________________________</span></p>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<a href="http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2307665,00.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2307665,00.html</span></a></p>
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<h2 style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 18pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-size:16.0pt">Sex Slavery Under the Nazis in Germany </span></h2>
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<a href="http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_lupe/0,,2307665,00.html" target="_blank" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="text-decoration:none"><img 0?="" width="240" height="178" id="Picture_x0020_1" alt="Ravensbrück was a concentration camp for women " style="width: 2.5in; height: 1.8541in; user-select: none;" src="service.svc/s/GetFileAttachment?id=AAMkADA2ODU2ZDBkLWYzNWItNGFhOC04ZmVmLWE0OTJiMmYzZWM5OABGAAAAAABGBw2b0skdSLjxkXc4kboFBwBNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAAAAAEPAABNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAOGOH0OAAABEgAQAKXej7sa%2BWNFtTbiX%2FQDFyM%3D&X-OWA-CANARY=s30iiVpUI0WRf9XNc4VpAMBcb0gTpdcI8JQg13xhRDyj-SW0rNEbuBmvOcKCCWAxT2Gtg4mV01U."></span></a>
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<em><u><span style="color:purple">Ravensbrück was a concentration camp for women </span>
</u></em></p>
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<h4 style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
<span style="font-weight:normal">1-14-2007</span> - An exhibition on sexual slavery under the Nazis will open at the former Ravensbrück concentration camp, organizers said.</h4>
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The Foundation of Brandenburg Memorials, which operates museums at the former camps, said in a statement Thursday that the forced prostitution system in the camps was a "little known phenomenon."</p>
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"The female prisoners who were forced to do sex work remained silent after 1945 about their experiences as well as about the brothel users -- male, and above all German, prisoners who were allowed by the SS to visit the brothels under a rewards system," the
foundation said.</p>
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
"Forced Sex Work in Nazi Concentration Camps" covers a system that ran in 10 camps between 1942 and 1945. Most of the women involved were prisoners at Ravensbrück, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Berlin.</p>
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Male prisoners were allowed visits to the sex slaves to boost their productivity in the Nazi arms factories during World War II.</p>
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The foundation said that encouraging sex with women was also a means of curbing homosexuality, which the Nazis feared would "break out" among male prisoners confined to their own camps.</p>
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<b>Trauma and shame</b></p>
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Women who were held at the brothels often suffered enduring psychological trauma and many did not apply for reparations after their liberation in 1945 due to the shame they felt.</p>
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<a href="http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_lupe/0,,2307665_ind_1,00.html" target="_blank" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="text-decoration:none"><img 0?="" width="240" height="178" id="Picture_x0020_2" alt="People from 40 nations were imprisoned at Ravensbrück" style="width: 2.5in; height: 1.8541in; user-select: none;" src="service.svc/s/GetFileAttachment?id=AAMkADA2ODU2ZDBkLWYzNWItNGFhOC04ZmVmLWE0OTJiMmYzZWM5OABGAAAAAABGBw2b0skdSLjxkXc4kboFBwBNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAAAAAEPAABNFUSRsW3TRIo6RTo9vvdQAAOGOH0OAAABEgAQAKYpHUXrnGJKsj9GQzrxhSs%3D&X-OWA-CANARY=s30iiVpUI0WRf9XNc4VpAMBcb0gTpdcI8JQg13xhRDyj-SW0rNEbuBmvOcKCCWAxT2Gtg4mV01U."></span></a><span class="picboxinlineeven"><i></i></span></p>
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<span class="picboxinlineeven"><i>Bildunterschrift: </i></span><a href="http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_lupe/0,,2307665_ind_1,00.html" target="_blank" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><i>Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:
<span class="symmagnifier"> </span>People from 40 nations were imprisoned at Ravensbrück</i></a></p>
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Forced prostitution in concentration camps was the subject of an exhibition in Vienna in 2005.</p>
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The exhibit at Ravensbrück, incorporates filmed interviews with survivors as well as photographs and documents.</p>
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Some 132,000 women and children, 20,000 men and 1,000 adolescent girls from about 40 countries were held at Ravensbrück and the youth concentration camp Uckermark between 1939 and 1945.</p>
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An estimated 40,000 of those prisoners were killed or died of mistreatment and disease during that period.
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